“I’se got to be a going,” answered Aleck.  “Much obliged.”

“Now, Aleck, hump yourself and you’ll get the widow sure along with her fourteen children.”

“She ain’t got but two children,” returned the colored man, and hurried away.  His appearance, with the hump on his back and the sign, caused both the Rovers to burst out laughing.

“Come on, I’ve got to see the end of this,” said Tom, and led the way by a side path to the Widow Taylor’s cottage.  This was a short cut, but Aleck would not take it, because of the briar bushes and the dust.  As the boys were in their knockaround suits they did not mind this.

The widow’s cottage was a tumbled down affair on a side street of Dexter’s Corners.  A stovepipe stuck out of a back window, and the front door lacked the lower hinge.  In the front yard the weeds were several feet high.

“I don’t see why Aleck wants to come and see such a person as this,” observed Sam.  “She may be pretty, as colored widows go, but she is certainly lazy and shiftless.”

“Yes, and she has more than two children and I know it.  Why, once I came past here and I saw her with at least seven or eight.”

When the boys came up they saw several colored children hurrying away from the house.  As they did this the widow came to the door and called after them: 

“Now, Arabella, go to the cemetery, jest as I tole yo’, an’ stay thar!”

“I ain’t gwine to stay long,” answered Arabella.

“You stay an hour or two,” answered the widow.  “To morrow, I’ll give yo’ money fer lolly pops.”

“What is she sending the children to the cemetery for?” asked Tom, in a whisper.

“Maybe to keep ’em quiet,” answered Sam, with a grin.

“Must be wanting to keep them out of Aleck’s way.”

At that moment the figure of a tall, lanky colored man came down a side street.  The man entered the widow’s cottage and received a warm welcome.

“Glad to see you, Mistah Thomas.  Hopes yo’ is feelin’ fine this ebenin’,” said the widow graciously.

“I’se come fo’ to make yo’ an offah,” said Mr. Thomas.  “Yo’ said yo’ would mahrry me soon as I had a job.  Well, I’se got de job now.”

“Is it a steady job?”

“Yes, at de stone quarry dribin’ a stone wagon.”

“How much yo’ gits a week, Peter?”

“Twelve dollahs,” was the proud answer.

“Den I closes wid you,” said the widow, and allowed the suitor to embrace her.

Just then Aleck came in sight.  As he saw the couple through the open door he straightened up.

“Maybe yo’ didn’t look fo’ me around, Mrs. Taylor,” he said, stiffly.

“Oh, Yes, I did, Mistah Pop,” she said, sweetly.  “But yo’ see—­I—­ dat is—­” She stopped short.  “Wot’s dat?” she cried.

“Wot?”

“Dat hump on yo’ back?”

“Ain’t no hump on my back,” answered Aleck.

“Suah da is.”